While still a practicing barrister, John Mortimer took up the pen, and the rest is literary history. The novelist, playwright, and memoirist wrote more than 80 short stories featuring the irascible, cigar-chomping, claret-tippling Horace Rumpole and his wife Hilda—"She Who Must Be Obeyed"—that have justly earned their place in the pantheon of mystery fiction. Bringing together 14 of Rumpole's most entertaining adventures (seven of which appeared in The Best of Rumpole) along with a fragment of a new story, this is "an excellent primer to all things Rumpole" (Library Journal).

"Horace Rumpole [is] a character Dickens would have been proud to have created ... a revelation to those of us who despaired of ever encountering a lawyer we could love. Who knew courtroom drama could be this much fun? The stories are intelligent, witty, and finely crafted.... So long as there is sympathy for the sinful and muddled mankind, a delight in humor, an interest in justice, and any love of freedom, Horace Rumpole will indeed be forever."—American Spectator